Good Guy With A Gun

You've seen articles by my hand about the worsening wealth-gap. There's another gap worth mentioning though, especially in the wake of yet another horrible school-shooting in the United States of America, and that's the gun-owners-gap; in 2017 just 3% of American adults collectively owned 133 million firearms - half of America's total gun stock in that year.

The statistics on gun ownership in America are off the charts; follow the link below today's cover image to be amazed. Really, these numbers are hard to comprehend or explain if you're from any other part of the world. And they only become harder to justify when America is also the leader when it comes to horrible events like mass- and school shootings; there have been 27 school shootings this year alone and 119 school shootings since 2018. On May 24, two teachers and 19 children were killed and 16 injured in a shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, almost a decade after the Sandy Hook School massacre of 2012. The Sandy Hook School shooting was the first time when the NRA (National Rifle Association) used the "good guy with a gun" myth, which has been repeated over and over again by Republicans and right wing media; "the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun."

Really? That's so dumb. Well, it's dumb to believe it. From the NRA's perspective it was the smart thing to say of course, ans well as from the Republican Party's perspective; both their support bases lean heavily on gun owners. In Pew Research Center's 2017 poll on The demographics of gun ownership we read that Republicans are more than twice as likely (44% versus 20%) to say that they own a gun. Another fact that stands out is that white men are especially likely to be gun owners: about half (48%) say they own a gun, compared with about a quarter of white women and nonwhite men (24% each) and 16% of nonwhite women. Most of those gun owners list "protection" as the primary reason to own a firearm, but many list multiple reasons and a good chunk of them own more than 2, or even more than 5 guns.

If we look at the numbers of guns owned per capita, the United States of America stand lonely at the very top with 120.5 guns per 100 persons, followed by 62.1 on the Falkland Islands and 52.8 in Yemen. I live in The Netherlands and we're placed number 162 with 2.6 guns per 100 persons, and we have very strict rules for getting a licence to own a gun; we have no problem with mass shootings. It's not a thing here, it never crosses our mind unless news from America reaches us, like last Tuesday. And the reaction here is generally one of amazement and sorrow; I can't even begin to imagine how the parents of those children and the family of those teachers must feel, and I'm amazed that seemingly there's no will whatsoever in America to change things.

Well, except arming more good guys with more guns of course. Or other whack-job ideas like having schools have only one entrance or stationing armed guards at schools, or even arm the teachers, and place metal-detectors in schools. Why not use prisons as schools then? It's easy for me, and anyone else not living in America, to say this is all very stupid. But it's not. It's not that simple. America is the only country I know of where the term "gun culture" has real meaning. The right to bear arms lies at the very foundation of the country; it's the Second Amendment to the Constitution for a reason and closely related to the whole perception of freedom and states' rights:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
_{source: Wikipedia}

The right to keep and bear arms is deeply ingrained in American culture and therefore not something that can be changed overnight. But something has to be done, and the solutions clearly is not more guns. That second amendment is open to interpretation and the way I read it, it was made in a time (1791) when America was much less of a country and much more of a still very loose collection of states. The armed militias mentioned in it had the purpose of protecting the free state from an overbearing Federal Government. It was never meant, as I understand it, for citizens to assault each other or to protect themselves against other citizens. Whatever may be the case, gun ownership has become an integral part of many Americans' identity, to the point that whenever there's a discussion on gun control many of them (predominantly found on the right wing of the political spectrum) will complain that their freedoms are infringed upon. I even remember a representative claiming that "they" can "have my gun over my dead body."

The "good guy with a gun" theory is laughable though. The good guys with guns are the police, and they did nothing to stop this latest or any of the other mass shootings. In fact, there's a upward trend in mass shootings congruous with increased police budgets over the past decades. And citizens with guns? Look at the below linked video. I admit, it's a skit, but it shows perfectly why that's a bad idea; trying to defuse life-threatening situations is best left to professionals who dedicate their lifes to protecting others. And the little song linked above lists some possible real solutions to this growing problem, and they all amount to making it harder to obtain a gun. Really, there's no other solution...

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